1948: A Kaiserreich Story

Jacques Sinclair - 1

As I looked through the aeroplane's window, I wondered to myself, "What does Tom, a British spy working for the now not-so-friendly government in London want with me? And why on Earth do we have to meet in Constantinople?" 

I knew how dangerous this meeting was going to be, especially since the city we were going to had been conquered and thoroughly pillaged by the Greek Republic a few years back. Persecutions and public executions weren't uncommon, and I couldn't imagine what they would do to a Communard like me. Although the city once used to be filled to the brim with spies from all nationalities, especially during the Second World War, Greek military police arrested and executed all the spies and diplomats from hostile nations they could find. I even lost a good friend of mine, too!

"Are you alright, Jacques?" asked Mary, looking into my eyes from her seat. "You haven't said anything the whole voyage, and I'm honestly starting to get a bit bored of clouds and neverending sea."

Mary Reed, or as most people call her, "Reed's Daughter", although no friends or close relatives to the late syndicalist revolutionary John "Jack" Reed have assured the rest of us that she is, in fact, his orphan daughter. This revolutionary woman escaped Syndicalist America by the end of 1940 when Federalist troops finally broke Chicago and New York, sneaking into a refugee boat headed for Britain while only being 16. She continued her work in London but quickly realized Totalism wasn't such a friendly ideology for journalists like her (and her presumed father), so once more she had to escape another brutal dictatorship to finally arrive in 1943 to Paris. Her abilities to gather information and to find reliable sources anywhere (and her good looks, which seemed to attract attention to her even more) meant that she would be assigned as my partner in the 𝐷𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝐶𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑠 𝑅𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑖𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝐺𝑒́𝑛𝑒́𝑟𝑎𝑢𝑥 (Central Branch of General Information). Her surprisingly good understanding of French and German and an incredible ability to persuade and convince meant that we broke no less than 18 different encrypted codes in the war, and once we returned her prestige coined her the very well known nickname. 

To me, she was just a 24-year-old mess that single-handedly saved me from myself so many times I've lost count. 

"Hey, boy. Are you even listening to me?" she barked. Her obsession with calling me "boy" as if I was much younger than her (I am 36) was still a mystery to me.

"Yes, I am," I muttered, waking up from my thoughts. "I was just thinking."

"Well, that's good. Not many people think, nowadays," she said, looking out the window. "We are about to land, so you best stop thinking and get ready for some action."

She was definitely right. This entire reunion seemed a bit odd, fishy even. If it was important, we would've met in London, Paris, or any other allied city. But not Constantinople.

Once the plane landed, we thanked Emile, our own personal pilot, and started making our way out of the hangar. Already we could see remnants of the Megali War, when Greece achieved it's revanchist desires and united all Greeks in Anatolia, cutting a very important part of the Ottoman Empire away. Torn flags on the floor, the occasional bullet and pistol left behind, even covered bodies. This city was holy for the Greeks, but they didn't make one effort in cleaning it up.

"We should hurry up," Mary whispered to me while walking faster. "I've seen the things they've done to other spies, and guards are already looking at us."

Although I wasn't as nervous as she was, she did have a point; our clothing could reveal us. I was wearing my favourite fedora and brown coat, while she used her newsboy cap, blue wide-leg pants and a white blouse. We weren't exactly tourists, and sooner or later someone would ask us why we walked these war-torn streets.

"Don't worry about it," I muttered back. "Tom told us to meet him at the Metaxa Cafe. It should be close."

"I suppose so but-" 

Just before Mary could finish the sentence, two Greek guards stopped us dead in our tracks. They both carried rifles and were pretty tall, so fighting was not the answer. No, we had to talk our way out of this.

"Deutsch?" they asked, with such a bad German accent Mary flinched a bit.

"Ja, wir sind gerade angekommen. Gibt es ein Problem, Offizier?" Mary responded, keeping her composure. Although I only knew how to say yes and no in German, I tried to play along.

"Darf ich deine Pässe sehen?" 

"Näturlich!" Mary then opened her bag and started looking for what I thought were passports. 

After a minute of looking, she pulled out two pieces of paper. I caught a glimpse of the Reichsadler, the Imperial German eagle, and I wondered to myself where she got those passports. Maybe she had stolen them in the war?

"Hier sind die Pässe," she said with a smile on her face. "Bekommst du nicht mehr viele Diplomaten?"

The guard looked very closely at the papers and squinted. His partner was still staring at us, ready to unload an entire magazine on our undefended bodies if anything went wrong. Mary kept her radiant smile while I tried to maintain a straight face. If I said or did anything, it would probably ruin our only chance to enter Constantinople alive.

"Alles ist gut, Sie können Konstantinopel betreten." The guard finally said, giving Mary her papers back.

"Wunderbar," cheered Mary. "Ich wünsche Ihnen einen guten Tag, Offizier."

The guards moved out of the way after what seemed like centuries to me, and we continued on our path to the cafe, silent so we wouldn't alert any other guards.

The city, although a ruin and a shadow of its former self, was still very busy. Mary and I walked through streets covered in small trading shops and the marvellous scent of spices in the air made the walk to the cafe more enjoyable, although I still felt uneasy. What did Tom want from us? I tried to clear my head and keep my composure. 

Mary, on the other hand, decided that she wanted to have some fun and buy trinkets and artefacts to bring back home. Two bags filled with spices of unknown origin, one Persian cat that ran away as soon as she tried to hug it and a porcelain cup of tea, which she threw in her bag without paying much attention to it. But, after a fiery discussion between Mary and a trader that apparently was too expensive for her niche interests, and 1 hour of walking, we finally reached the Metaxa Cafe. 

"I don't think I've ever seen a more bourgeois cafe than this, Jacques." Laughed Mary.

White marble pillars, golden chairs and fine stone tables overwhelmed us both as soon as we walked through the door. The cafe itself wasn't busy, and at most I could see four, maybe five people there, sitting, waiting, drinking or anything they could afford. As I shifted my eyes throughout the place, I finally saw him sitting alone, looking directly to us:

Tom Miller, Chief of the Republican Secret Intelligence Service.